Unexpectedly, Harold

Getting back to my superpower

The meeting starts with an invitation to share what we come back to, time and again, for comfort and stress relief. We make jokes about tubs of frosting and bottles of bourbon, but we mostly take the assignment seriously, offering favorite movies, sitcoms, music, foods, and precious time outside, away from it all, as antitoxins for the anxiety of being. 

What piques my interest most is one person’s reference to children’s books, in this case young adult fiction. What a concept! I can’t recall seeking solace from any book when I’m in crisis mode, except, perhaps, for poetry. I read. Oh, do I read! Blogs, case studies, fix-it articles, and hot takes—anything to help me see how someone else might see a similar situation. But when my hair is on fire, as it has been recently, the ability to concentrate on a plot goes up in smoke. 

All that day and into the next, I think about books I read and reread to my children, many of them books read and reread to me. How promising it was to meet the same characters in their familiar settings, how reassuring to know where their stories take them!

Lyle, Ferdinand, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, Mike Mulligan, the plucky Little Engine. Laura Ingalls, Stuart Little, Max and his wild things, Pooh and his pals, Wilbur and his. 

And then I remember Harold. Harold! The bald little boy in pajamas whose whole world relies on his imagination and a big, purple crayon. 

I keep Harold on a hand-me-down, painted bookshelf in the guest room, next to well-loved copies of When We Were Very Young and The Little Prince. Though my children are long grown, and it’s rare for me to have visitors who are of the age to be interested in his adventures, I’ve never considered putting Harold in storage. Like the ancestors whose pictures hang on the wall opposite him, my many beloveds whose existence, miraculously, coalesced to create mine, Harold is part of my story. 

Waving his magic crayon across 64 small pages, Harold creates everything he needs, including solutions to a host of predicaments. To walk in the moonlight on a night with no moon, he draws a cheerful crescent above his head and a straight path at his feet. The dragon he makes to guard his apple tree is so frightening that his hand shakes, shaping the wavy surface of an ocean into which Harold sinks. Thinking fast, he draws himself into a trim little boat and sets sail. He makes land, and colors a picnic of pies. He draws a mountain, falls off the edge, and rescues himself with a purple balloon. And finally, after trying a very long time to make a place that feels like his own, he remembers how to find his way home. 

Lately, and with increasing frequency, I feel I’ve lost my purple crayon. Despite keeping up appearances, I am scared, tired, and lost. Where can I find the will to carry on? 

Unexpectedly, Harold. 

Harold and his unflappable determination. Harold and how he meets his fears head-on. Harold and his wonderful resilience. 

I read all 64 little pages. I read them again. I marvel at the profound simplicity of them. I consider what it means to face adversity, to be sure of my place, to live with curiosity. I remind myself that beauty is here, whether or not I can see it. 

The world isn’t a children’s book with magical characters and cozy endings. It’s rude, remorseless, and far too invested in getting ahead. There are people who who make it their purpose to pulverize purple crayons. And so, looking for light becomes empowering, and dreaming of a better future becomes an act of resistance.

I will come back to Harold. I will turn to him when I need to remember, again, that my superpower lies in being relentlessly creative in how I see the world. 

~Elizabeth

Maybe you’re sick of platitudes, not ready to rebound, or not sure it’s possible. I get that. Hashtag, it’s complicated. Still, maybe one way we can support each other is by sharing our sources of comfort right now. What are you doing or not doing? If you’ve got an open tub of frosting going, who am I to judge?! I appreciate you. I appreciate that we are finding our way together. That’s good.

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A sincere welcome to all who are here for the first time. I don’t know how you feel about chickens, or birds in general, but I adore them, so I hope you won’t mind if, from time to time, I think of us as part of a happy flock of free range friends!

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